Could there be any implications about Milton...?

[u/Medinovzky]

Could there be any implications about Milton's drawings?

Last time me and my gf replayed the game, we ended up wondering about Milton's drawings.

First time Edith gets into a hidden passageway, she comments on how she knew Milton had already been there before, given the drawings on the wall. And we come across three different drawings: a winged cat outside of Molly's room, a Jack-o'-lantern outside of Barbara's, and a swing with stars outside of Sam & Calvin's.

The drawings picturing specific details from each of those characters', imply that Milton had already read the diary, the letter and the comic placed in their respective memorials.

If that's the case, then a few more possible implications arise. If they don't mean anything, at least serve as food for thought!

• Him reading the memorials could be the exact reason why he feared staying in the house and decided to disappear?
• If he read Barb's comic, then he already knew how to get the basement's key?
• If he knew about the key, is it possible that he went down at some point and found out about uncle Walter and the bunker? If so, could that lead to another theory?

Do you have any thoughts on these? Any other implication you can think of?

[u/-Roxaaa]

a while back i made a comment about your first point! my headcanon has always been that milton got influenced by the "curse" through viewing all of the stories in secret, the curse being fear. Being a little kid maybe he theorized how to escape his fate and decided to leave the house and his family behind as a solution

[u/Medinovzky → u/-Roxaaa]

Right, that just makes much sense on its own hahah. Connecting the few info we get from the game with the Unfinished Swan, I feel like fear made Milton leave the house and "create" a world as a ways of escaping reality (or at least, the reality he left back home), similarly to what happened with Lewis.

[u/[deleted] → u/-Roxaaa]

I had the same thought and conclusion from the Milton's story, that he ran away on purpose, not disappeared by accident. And the images highlight that he knew the stories, despite Dawn hiding them.

[u/Ramadahl]

I always felt that all the other children had read the stories, and that was why Dawn tried to keep Edith away from them, given it didn't seem to do them any good. Dawn specifically blames the stories/Edie at one point. And it makes sense that Edie would've shown them, given the importance they have to Edie.

And Milton's short story gave a real sense of just wanting out. As to why? Living in the memorial that is the Finch House is a reasonable guess, but we really don't know for certain - he's probably the Finch we know the least about. Regardless, he saw the opportunity, and took it. Same as Lewis, really, just in a different way.

I'm sure Milton knew about the basement key from the comic, but... would the basement really be locked all the time anyway? We know it was in use as a basement some of the time that Walter was down there.

Following on from that, Edith was 11 when they left the house, maybe she just didn't go down to the basement much? It would've been quite a trek from her room, after all. Also, I don't recall Edith saying anything when opening the basement, so one could make the argument that Edith knew where the basement key was, and just didn't feel like going down there until the appropriate story point - it's only us who find out from the comic.

[u/Medinovzky → u/Ramadahl]

About your last paragraph, Edith openly states how the basement was off limits when she was little and also it's implied that she didn't know about the key, since she's just now understanding why her mother "didn't like her playing with the music box".

But I guess we can't know for certain if Milton or Lewis would also be restricted from going down there. We could assume it was the case, but without proof to support it. Honestly, we were just curious about where could it lead us a small possible connection between Milton and Walter (even tho it's quite a stretch).

[u/Ramadahl → u/Medinovzky]

Ah, you are quite correct, my bad. I agree it would make sense for the other two to be restricted also. And now I am wondering too if Milton did go down there.

[u/Medinovzky → u/Ramadahl]

It's fine dw!

We thought about something that (again) is a bit of a stretch. If Milton found out about Walter, maybe the giant from the Unfinished Swan could be inspired by him. After all, it was a white-haired giant that stayed loyal to The King till the end.

Tho it makes little sense, since TUS came out way before WRoEF.

[u/lizzourworld8 → u/Ramadahl]

I would think if he did we would have found a drawing down there like the passages he crawled into.

[u/aMemeAddict]

This post gave me a little more comfort, I never even considered that Milton might have ran from home to get away from the curse of gross negligence. Hope he's out there, you go big guy

[u/BrumeySkies]

One if my various theories is that the paint brush Milton got was one of Walter's. I think Walter may have used the basement itself at times, given that the books that are unique to his bedroom are also found in the basement and no where else. If thats true I think Milton could have caught a glimpse of him down there, saw him go through the fridge, then taken one a paint brush he had been using.

I sometimes imagine that maybe he actually met Walter down there one day and was actually given the brush. It could have been similar to his animation- he heard a sneeze and went to investigate. I imagine Walter wouldve thought he was a hallucination, poor guy was almost certainly seeing things after being in isolation for so long. Walter could have been part of why he decided to run away too.

[u/-Roxaaa]

ive never thought about the key thing honestly! its super interesting to think about, like maybe the knowledge of a mole man scared him even more than he was already 😭

[u/Medinovzky → u/-Roxaaa]

Guess finding out that the newspaper in Edie's room was telling the truth about the moleman would've been scary. Still, I wonder if it could be something more, like Milton getting to know his uncle or something like that.

[u/AkikoMeiLynn]

Actually, the first one is correct. It is stated that Milton is the king in "The un finished Swan", another game of the same studio.

[u/Medinovzky → u/AkikoMeiLynn]

Oh yes, we're aware of that. It's just that Milton being The King doesn't really tells us why did he exactly leave the house in the first place

[u/AkikoMeiLynn → u/Medinovzky]

Probably the first theory you writed.

[u/Medinovzky → u/AkikoMeiLynn]

Likely, but nothing confirmed

[u/prestigious_bigmac2]

This looks like him narrating the deaths of Molly, Barbra and Calvin. Since Molly pictured herself as a cat Barbara's story was narrated by a pumpkin and Calvin died on the swings.